THE CAMBRIDGE EDITION OF THE WORKS OF JOSEPH...

THECAMBRIDGE EDITION OF

THE WORKS OFJOSEPH CONRAD

www.cambridge.org© in this web service Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press978-0-521-82407-1 - Joseph Conrad: Under Western EyesEdited by Roger Osborne and Paul Eggert FrontmatterMore information

http://www.cambridge.org/9780521824071

http://www.cambridge.org


UNDER WESTERN EYES






THE CAMBRIDGE EDITION OF THE WORKS OFJOSEPH CONRAD

General EditorsJ. H. Stape and Allan H. Simmons

St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, London

Editorial BoardLaurence Davies, University of Glasgow

Alexandre Fachard, Universite de LausanneRobert Hampson, Royal Holloway, University of London

Jeremy Hawthorn, The Norwegian University of Science and TechnologyOwen Knowles, University of Hull

Linda Bree, Cambridge University Press

Textual AdvisorRobert W. Trogdon, Institute for Bibliography and Editing

Kent State University

Founding Editors†Bruce Harkness Marion C. Michael Norman Sherry

Chief Executive Editor (1985–2008)†S. W. Reid






JOSEPH CONRAD

UNDER WESTERN EYES

edited byRoger Osborne and Paul Eggert

introduction byKeith Carabine

explanatory notes byJeremy Hawthorn and Keith Carabine






University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education,learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.orgInformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521824071

This, the Cambridge Edition of the text of Under Western Eyes now correctly established from theoriginal sources and first published in 2013 C© the Estate of Joseph Conrad 2013. Introduction,

textual essay, apparatus, appendices and notes C© Cambridge University Press 2013. Permission toreproduce these texts entire or in part, or to quote from them, or to reproduce the introduction,

textual essay, apparatus, appendices and notes entire or in part should be requested fromCambridge University Press.

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exceptionand to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,no reproduction of any part may take place without the written

permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2013

Printed in the United Kingdom by CPI Group Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication dataConrad, Joseph, 1857–1924.

Under western eyes / Joseph Conrad; edited by Roger Osborne and Paul Eggert; Introduction byKeith Carabine; Explanatory Notes by Jeremy Hawthorn and Keith Carabine. – Cambridge edition.

pages cm. – (The Cambridge edition of the works of Joseph Conrad)isbn 978-0-521-82407-1 (Hardback)

1. College students – Fiction. 2. Terrorism – Fiction. 3. Bombings – Fiction. 4. Russia –History –

1904–1914 – Fiction. 5. Saint Petersburg (Russia) – Fiction. 6. Geneva (Switzerland) – Fiction.I. Osborne, Roger, 1967– II. Eggert, Paul, 1951– III. Title.

pr6005.o4u5 2013823′.912 – dc23 2013006191

isbn 978-0-521-82407-1 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy ofurls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,

and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,accurate or appropriate.






Published in association with

The Centre for Joseph Conrad StudiesSt Mary’s University College

Twickenham, London

Center for Conrad StudiesInstitute for Bibliography and Editing

Kent State University

Preparation of this volume has been supported by

The Australian Research Council

The Kent State University Foundation

National Endowment for the Humanities

Research and Graduate Studies, Kent State University






CONTENTS

List of Illustrations page xiGeneral Editors’ Preface xiiiAcknowledgements xvChronology xviiiAbbreviations and Note on Editions xxiv

INTRODUCTION xxviiOrigins xxviiiSources xxxiiReception xlvi

UNDER WESTERN EYES 1

Author’s Note 5

Under Western Eyes 9

THE TEXTS : AN ESSAY 295The Growth of the Novel 296Preprint Documents 315Serialization 331Book Editions 338Copy-text and Emendation 349The ‘Author’s Note’ 361The Cambridge Texts 366

APPARATUS 369Emendation and Variation 369Emendations of Accidentals 516End-of-Line Word-Division 528

ix






x contents

TEXTUAL NOTES 529

APPENDICES 543A The Original Manuscript Ending 543B Major Typescript Deletions 547C Conrad’s Working Methods: Some

Features of the Typescript 597

EXPLANATOR Y NOTES 601

Map 631






ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures

1 Manuscript of Under Western Eyes, page 1351Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library,Yale University page 291

2 Typescript of Under Western Eyes, page 1Free Library of Philadelphia 292

3 Typescript of ‘Author’s Note’ to Under Western Eyes, page 1Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library,Yale University 293

4 Under Western Eyes, The English Review, December 1910,page 130 294

5 Genealogy of Under Western Eyes 344

Map

Late nineteenth-century Geneva 631

xi






GENERAL EDITORS ’ PREFACE

J oseph conrad’s place in twentieth-century literature is nowfirmly established. Although his novels, stories and other writingshave become integral to modern thought and culture, the need

for an accurate and authoritative edition of his works remains. Owingto successive rounds of authorial revision, transmissional errors anddeliberate editorial intervention, Conrad’s texts exist in various unsat-isfactory and sometimes even confused forms.

During the last years of his life he attempted to have his workspublished in a uniform edition that would fix and preserve them forposterity. But although trusted by scholars, students and the generalreader alike, the received texts published in the British and Ameri-can collected editions, and in various reprintings of them since 1921,have proved to be at least as defective as their predecessors. Groundedin thorough research in the surviving original documents, the Cam-bridge Edition is designed to reverse this trend by presenting Conrad’snovels, stories and other prose in texts that are as trustworthy as mod-ern scholarship can make them.

The present volume contains critical texts of Under Western Eyes andits ‘Author’s Note’ (1920). The Cambridge text of Under Western Eyesis based on the extant revised typescript held in the Free Libraryof Philadelphia. The copy-text is emended to incorporate authorialrevisions drawn from later authoritative documents as well as editorialcorrections of errors. The copy-text of the ‘Author’s Note’, the revisedtypescript held in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library ofYale University, is treated in the same way.

The ‘Introduction’ provides a literary history of the work focused onits genesis, sources and early reception, including its place in Conrad’slife and art. The essay on ‘The Texts’ traces the textual history of thevolume, examines the origins of its individual texts and explains thepolicies followed in editing them. The ‘Apparatus’ records basic tex-tual evidence, documenting the discussion of genealogy and author-ity in ‘The Texts: An Essay’ as well as other editorial decisions, andthe ‘Textual Notes’ deal with cruxes and textual issues. Appendices

xiii






xiv general editors ’ preface

present the novel’s original manuscript ending and matter that Con-rad deleted from the typescript of the novel, both published here infull for the first time. His working methods in the typescript are alsodescribed in this section. The ‘Explanatory Notes’ comment on spe-cific readings that require glosses, dealing with sources, identifyingreal-life place-names and related matters, as well as explaining for-eign words and phrases. Supplementing this material are a map andillustrations.

The textual essay, textual notes, appendices and ‘Apparatus’ aredesigned with the textual scholar and specialist in mind, while the‘Introduction’ and ‘Explanatory Notes’ are intended primarily for anon-specialist audience.

The support of the institutions listed on p. vii has been essential tothe success of this series and is gratefully acknowledged. In additionto those, and the individuals and institutions listed in the Acknowl-edgements, the General Editors and the Editorial Board also wish tothank the Trustees and beneficiaries of the Estate of Joseph Conrad,Doubleday and Company and J. M. Dent and Company for permissionto publish these new texts of Conrad’s works.

The General Editors






ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

T hanks are due to the following institutions and individualsfor facilitating access to manuscripts and unpublished materials:

the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, andGraham Sherriff, Library Services Assistant; the Henry W. and AlbertA. Berg Collection, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and TildenFoundations, and Isaac Gewirtz and the late Lola Szladits (Curators);the Free Library of Philadelphia; and the Rosenbach Museum andLibrary, Philadelphia, and Elizabeth E. Fuller (Curator).

A number of individuals kindly supplied information or otherwiseshared their expertise, and we should especially like to thank thefollowing: Paul B. Armstrong for advice on textual issues and JamesC. Hatch for seeing the volume through the Committee on ScholarlyEditions of the Modern Language Association; Laurence Davies forreplies to enquiries about Conrad’s letters; Alexandre Fachard forinformation and comments on the textual materials; John G. Peters forinformation about reviews; and Donald J. Shewan for his work on themap. Stephen Donovan’s endeavours to bring Conrad’s serializationsinto the digital age with Conrad First: The Joseph Conrad Periodical Archive(www.conradfirst.net) have proved valuable.

Special thanks are due to the late S. W. Reid, former Chief ExecutiveEditor of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad, underwhose ægis this project began and whose encouragement, advice andwisdom were unstintingly available to Conrad textual scholars for morethan two decades. Gratitude is also due to Robert W. Trogdon, Directorof the Institute for Bibliography and Editing at Kent State University,whose advice and sharing of editorial resources were invaluable. Weare also grateful to them and to David Leon Higdon for on-site read-ings of the originals.

The identification and collation of first printings, the proofing ofsome transcriptions and other work both at Kent State Universityand, at an early stage of this project, by David Leon Higdon, easedthe task of the present editors. We should also like to acknowledge

xv






xvi acknowledgements

the work of earlier Conrad scholars, especially those who have stud-ied the documents of Under Western Eyes. Whether our conclusionsfollow or correct theirs, the present edition has profited from theirlabours.

Thanks for assistance with support tasks are due to Catherine L.Tisch and, at an early stage of this project, to Gale Graham, at the Insti-tute for Bibliography and Editing at Kent State University. Gratitudeis also expressed to Linda Bree and Maartje Scheltens at CambridgeUniversity Press for steadfast support and helpful advice; to ChristinaSarigiannidou, who saw this volume through production; and to LeighMueller, whose careful and sensitive copy-editing has enriched the textin numerous ways.

Roger Osborne and Paul Eggert are especially grateful to the co-General Editors and to the members of the Editorial Board, all ofwhom provided valuable advice during the evolution of their work.Roger Osborne also wishes to record his gratitude to the Univer-sity of New South Wales, Canberra, for a University College Post-graduate Research Scholarship that supported much of the founda-tional research for this edition, and to the Library and ancillary staffthere, whose assistance was indispensable. Paul Eggert also wishes tothank the University of New South Wales, Canberra, for study leaveand for travel, administrative and library support, and to express hisgratitude to the Australian Research Council for generous financialassistance.

Keith Carabine is grateful to the British Academy for financial sup-port, and to the Department of English, the University of Kent atCanterbury, for administrative support and study leaves. He owes spe-cial thanks to Angela Faunch, Interlibrary Loan Office of the Univer-sity of Kent Library, and to Owen Knowles.

Jeremy Hawthorn wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the adviceof Andrzej Busza, Wolfgang Wicht and Leona Toker.

For their support of the Edition we also wish to express gratitude topresent and former administrators of Kent State University, including,in alphabetical order, Rudolph O. Buttlar, Carol A. Cartwright, CherylA. Casper, Ron Corthell, Joseph H. Danks, Todd Diacon, Robert Frank,Paul L. Gaston, Alex Gildzen, Cara L. Gilgenbach, Charlee Heim-lich, Dean H. Keller, Sanford E. Marovitz, Tim Moerland, Thomas D.Moore, Stephen H. Paschen, Terry P. Roark, Michael Schwartz, F. S.Schwarzbach, Carol M. Toncar and Eugene P. Wenninger. Acknowl-edgement of special support goes to the staffs of Kent State University’s






acknowledgements xvii

Libraries (James K. Bracken, Dean) and Computer Services (WilliamE. McKinley, Jr, Director).

The facsimiles that precede the textual essay are reproduced bycourtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, YaleUniversity, and the Free Library of Philadelphia.






CHRONOLOGY

J oseph conrad’s life may be seen as having several distinctstages: in the Ukraine, in Russian exile and in Austrian Polandbefore his father’s death (1857–69); in Austrian Poland and the

south of France as the ward of his maternal uncle (1870–78); inthe British merchant service, mainly as a junior officer sailing in theFar East and Australia (1879–early 1890s); after a transitional period(early 1890s), as writer of critical esteem (1895–1914); as acclaimedwriter, although perhaps with his greatest work achieved (1915–24).After 1895 the history of his life is essentially the history of his works.

Publication dates given below are those of the English editions,unless otherwise specified.

1857 December 3 Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski(Nałecz coat-of-arms) born in Berdyczowin the Ukraine, part of the RussianEmpire, to Apollo Korzeniowski andEwelina (or Ewa), nee Bobrowska,Korzeniowska

1862 May Apollo Korzeniowski, his wife and sonforced into exile in Russia

1865 April Ewa Korzeniowska dies of tuberculosis1867 Conrad visits Odessa with his maternal

uncle Tadeusz Bobrowski; perhaps his firstview of the sea

1868 Korzeniowski permitted to leave Russia1869 February Korzeniowski and Conrad move to Cracow

May Korzeniowski dies1870 Conrad, ward of Bobrowski, begins study

with tutor, Adam Pulman1873 May Visits Switzerland and northern Italy1874 October Takes position in Marseilles with Delestang

et Fils, wholesalers and shippers1875 Apprentice in Mont-Blanc (to Caribbean)

xviii






chronology xix

1876–7 In Saint-Antoine (to Caribbean)1878 late February Attempts suicide

or early MarchApril Leaves Marseilles in British steamer Mavis

(Mediterranean waters)June Lands at Lowestoft, Suffolk; first time in

EnglandJuly–September Sails as ordinary seaman in Skimmer of the

Sea (North Sea)1878–80 In Duke of Sutherland (to Sydney), Europa

(Mediterranean waters)1880 Meets G. F. W. Hope and Adolf Krieger

June Passes examination for second mate1880–81 Third mate in Loch Etive (to Sydney)1881–4 Second mate in Palestine, Riversdale,

Narcissus (Eastern seas)1884 December Passes examination for first mate1885–6 Second mate in Tilkhurst (to Singapore

and India)1886 Submits ‘The Black Mate’, perhaps his first

story, to Tit-Bits competitionAugust Becomes a British subjectNovember Passes examination for master and

receives ‘Certificate of Competency’1886–7 Second mate in Falconhurst (British waters)1887–8 First mate in Highland Forest, Vidar

(Eastern seas)1888–9 Captain of barque Otago (Bangkok to

Australia and Mauritius)1889 autumn Begins Almayer’s Folly in London1890 February–April In Poland for first time since 1874

May–December In the Congo. Second-in-command,then temporarily captain, of Roi desBelges

1891 Manages warehouse of Barr, Moering inLondon

1891–3 First mate in Torrens (London andPlymouth to Adelaide)

1893 Meets John Galsworthy and Edward L.(‘Ted’) Sanderson (passengers on Torrens)






xx chronology

autumn Visits Bobrowski in the UkraineNovember Signs on as second mate in Adowa, which

sails only to Rouen and back1894 January Signs off Adowa, ending career as seaman

February Bobrowski diesautumn Meets Edward Garnett and Jessie George

1895 April Almayer’s Folly1896 March An Outcast of the Islands. Marries Jessie

GeorgeSeptember Settles in Stanford-le-Hope, Essex,

after six-month honeymoon inBrittany

1897 Begins friendship with R. B. CunninghameGraham; meets Henry James and StephenCrane

December The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’1898 Meets Ford Madox (Hueffer) Ford and

H. G. WellsJanuary Alfred Borys Leo Conrad bornOctober Moves to Pent Farm, Postling, near Hythe,

Kent, sub-let from Ford1899 February–April ‘The Heart of Darkness’ in Blackwood’s

Edinburgh Magazine1900 September Begins association with literary agent J. B.

PinkerOctober Lord Jim

1901 June The Inheritors (with Ford)1902 November Youth: A Narrative and Two Other Stories1903 April Typhoon and Other Stories

October Romance (with Ford)1904 July 15 Assassination in St Petersburg of Interior

Minister Vyacheslav Konstantinovich dePlehve

October Nostromo1905 June One Day More staged in London

July ‘Autocracy and War’ in Fortnightly Review1906 August John Alexander Conrad born

October The Mirror of the Sea1907 mid-May– Conrad and family in Geneva

mid-August






chronology xxi

May 18 First ‘idea’ for short story ‘Razumov’, laterUnder Western Eyes

September The Secret Agent. Moves to Someries, Luton,Bedfordshire

c. December 3 Begins writing ‘Razumov’1908 January Expands and revises ‘The Black Mate’, first

drafted in 1886c. March 11 Reaches end of Part i of ‘Razumov’March 15 Envisages ‘a short novel’, but progress

slows on reaching Geneva sectionAugust A Set of SixSeptember 18 First instalment of ‘Some Reminiscences’

for English Review now draftedSeptember 29– Typing of ‘Razumov’ reaches near start of

Part ii/4October 14October 8 Second ‘Some Reminiscences’ paper now

finished; lays ‘Razumov’ aside to continuewith third

mid-November? Writes review of Anatole France’s L’Ile desPingouins for English Review; returns to‘Razumov’ towards end of month

by c. December 9 Concludes first series (four instalments) of‘Some Reminiscences’; has put aside ‘some8000’ words, probably ‘Prince Roman’(revised September–October 1911)

1909 early January Finishes ‘Razumov’ to manuscript page700 (towards end of Part ii/4)

February Moves to Aldington, Kentearly March?–May 20 Completes three further instalments of

‘Some Reminiscences’by March 31 Passes end of Part ii of ‘Razumov’December 5–c. 18 Breaks off ‘Razumov’ to write ‘The Secret

Sharer’December 18 Receives Pinker’s demand to complete

‘Razumov’ within a fortnight1910 January 12 First mention of title Under Western Eyes

January 19? Completes up to manuscript page 1300(near end of Part iv/3)

January 27 Delivers manuscript to Pinker to near endof Part iv/4; furious row with him






xxii chronology

by January 30 Writes last manuscript pagesJanuary 30 Nervous collapse, followed by slow

recovery throughout the springApril–May Undertakes typescript revisions, sending

batches to Robert Garnett for retyping andcorrection

June 24 Moves to Capel House, Orlestone, Kentc. late October Corrects English Review proofs of first

instalment of Under Western Eyes, hereaftera monthly obligation

December Serialization begins in English Review andNorth American Review (concludes October1911)

1911 before May 13? Serious problems with English Reviewproofs

by early September Methuen proofs begin arriving induplicate; ‘muddle’ with proofsensues

October 5 Under Western Eyes in England (19 Octoberin America)

1912 January Some Reminiscences (as A Personal Record inAmerica)

October ’Twixt Land and Sea1913 September Chance, with ‘main’ publication date of

January 19141914 July–November Visits Austrian Poland with family; delayed

by outbreak of First World War; returns viaVienna and Genoa

1915 February Within the TidesSeptember Victory

1917 March The Shadow-Line1919 March Moves to Spring Grove, near Wye, Kent.

Dramatic version of Victory opens inLondon

August The Arrow of GoldOctober Moves to Oswalds, Bishopsbourne, near

Canterbury, Kent1920 by May 20 Writes ‘Author’s Note’ for Under Western

EyesJune The Rescue






chronology xxiii

1921 January–April Visits Corsica. Collected editions beginpublication in England (Heinemann) andin America (Doubleday)

February Notes on Life and Letters1922 November The Secret Agent staged in London1923 May–June Visits America, guest of F. N. Doubleday

December The Rover1924 May Declines knighthood

August 3 Dies at Oswalds. Roman Catholic funeraland burial, Canterbury

September The Nature of a Crime (with Ford)October The Shorter Tales of Joseph Conrad

1925 January Tales of HearsaySeptember Suspense (unfinished)

1926 March Last Essays1928 June The Sisters






ABBREVIATIONSAND NOTE ON EDITIONS

abbreviat ions

[London is the place of publication unless otherwise specified.]

Bibliography William R. Cagle and Robert W. Trogdon, ‘ABibliography of Joseph Conrad’. Typescript,unpublished

Carabine Keith Carabine, The Life and the Art: A Study ofConrad’s ‘Under Western Eyes’. Amsterdam:Rodopi, 1996

CR Joseph Conrad: The Contemporary Reviews.General Editors Allan H. Simmons, John G.Peters and J. H. Stape, with Richard Niland,Mary Burgoyne and Katherine Isobel Baxter.4 vols. Cambridge University Press, 2012

Donovan, ed. Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, ed. StephenDonovan. Penguin Books, 2007

Hervouet Yves Hervouet, The French Face of Joseph Conrad.Cambridge University Press, 1990

Kirschner (1988) Paul Kirschner, ‘Making You See Geneva: TheSense of Place in Under Western Eyes’, L’EpoqueConradienne (1988), 101–27

Kirschner (1992) Paul Kirschner, ‘Topodialogic Narrative inUnder Western Eyes and the Rasoumoffs of “LaPetite Russie”’, Conrad’s Cities: Essays for Hansvan Marle, ed. Gene M. Moore. Amsterdam:Rodopi, 1992, pp. 223–54

Kirschner, ed. Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, ed. PaulKirschner. Penguin Books, 1996

Knowles Owen Knowles, ‘Under Western Eyes: A Note onTwo Sources’, The Conradian, 10 (1985),154–61

Letters The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad. GeneralEditors Frederick R. Karl and Laurence Davies,

xxiv






l i st of abbreviat ions xxv

with Owen Knowles, Gene M. Moore and J. H.Stape. 9 vols. Cambridge University Press,1983–2007

Najder Zdzisław Najder, Joseph Conrad: A Life, trans.Halina Najder. Rochester, New York: CamdenHouse, 2007

Najder, Conrad Conrad Under Familial Eyes, ed. Zdzisław Najderand trans. Halina Carroll-Najder. CambridgeUniversity Press, 1983

Najder, Letters Conrad’s Polish Background: Letters to and fromPolish Friends, ed. Zdzisław Najder and trans.Halina Carroll. Oxford University Press,1964

Register Gene M. Moore, comp., ‘A DescriptiveLocation Register of Joseph Conrad’s LiteraryManuscripts’, The Conradian, 27, no. 2 (2002),1–93

locations of unpublished documents

Berg Berg Collection, New York Public Library, Astor,Lenox and Tilden Foundations

Hofstra Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library, HofstraUniversity, Hempstead, New York

Northwestern Charles Deering McCormick Library,Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

Philadelphia Free Library of PhiladelphiaRosenbach Rosenbach Museum and Library, PhiladelphiaYale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale

University, New Haven, Connecticut

note on edit ions

References to Conrad’s works are to the Cambridge Edition ofthe Works of Joseph Conrad where these have been published. Other-wise, references are, for the sake of convenience, to Dent’s CollectedEdition, 1946–55, whose pagination is identical with that of the various‘editions’ published by Doubleday throughout the 1920s. References






xxvi l i st of abbreviat ions

to the Cambridge Edition take the following form: title (year of publi-cation), whereas publication dates are not provided for citations fromDent’s Collected Edition.

Citations from critical and other works are identified by author,title and date of publication. References to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crimeand Punishment (1866) are to the translation by Frederick Whishaw,first published in 1886 in Vizetelly’s One-Volume novel series, in itsEveryman reprinting of 1911.






INTRODUCTION

T he last in a trilogy of political novels that includes Nostromo(1904) and The Secret Agent (1907), Under Western Eyes (1911)

engages with the great issues of imperialism, revolution, capitalismand anarchism. In the first significant revaluation of Conrad’s canonafter the Second World War, F. R. Leavis judged the novel ‘a mostdistinguished work’ although regarding the other two as Conrad’s‘supreme masterpieces’.1 While this verdict has stood the test of time,several later commentators have hailed Under Western Eyes as amongthe most significant fictions of the twentieth century,2 and placed italongside such European classics as Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime andPunishment (1866), to which it is indebted, and Franz Kafka’s The Trial(1925).

Shortly before Under Western Eyes was published, Conrad informedhis literary agent, J. B. Pinker, that he planned to explain in the prefaceto Some Reminiscences (later A Personal Record) ‘how I came to write sucha novel ... so utterly unlike in subject and treatment from anything Ihad done before’.3 The ‘subject’ – Razumov’s twofold betrayal andtwofold confession – is a variation on familiar Conradian themes;and because it is the writer’s only full-length work set in Russia, thecountry of his birth, Conrad knew before he began the work that itwould draw upon childhood memories and require him to explorehis profound ambivalence about his divided Polish heritage and hiscomplex feelings about his parents and family. Conrad’s ‘most deeplymeditated novel’ (Letters, v, 695) took three years to compose andculminated in a physical and mental breakdown in early 1910.

The narrative ‘treatment’ involving a double focus is familiarenough, but Under Western Eyes is a radical variation on it in being basedupon a diary mediated through the Western eyes of an unnamed,

1 The Great Tradition: George Eliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad (1948), pp. 251–2. Thechapters on Conrad were first published in Scrutiny in 1941.

2 See, for example, Morton D. Zabel, ‘Introduction’, Under Western Eyes (1963), p. xviii.3 Conrad to J. B. Pinker, 13 September 1911 (Letters, iv, 477).

xxvii






xxviii introduction

elderly English teacher of languages who, by confessing that he lacksboth the novelist’s ‘high gifts of imagination and expression’ and‘comprehension of the Russian character’,1 disqualifies himself as aninterpreter. Unsurprisingly, the complexities and tensions of the dualnarrative and the riddling narrator have generated widely differing val-uations of the doubleness variously detected in the novel’s narrativefocus, irony and authority.2

ORIGINS

According to Conrad’s first biographer, G. Jean-Aubry, it wasduring Conrad’s three-month stay with his family in Geneva, frommid-May to mid-August 1907, that he remembered ‘a casual con-versation he had had with a stranger’ during a visit to the city inMay 1895 that provided ‘the idea’ for Under Western Eyes.3 Long thehaven of Russian revolutionaries of various stripes – from the anar-chist Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin and socialist Alexander Herzento the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and their grim shadows,the Tsarist spies – Geneva was a city Conrad knew well, having repairedto it for hydrotherapy at periods of personal crisis.4 During each visithe lodged at the Hotel-Pension de la Roseraie in Champel-les-Bains,a mere 400 yards (some 360 metres) from an area nicknamed ‘LaPetite Russie’ (‘Little Russia’). Situated in the commune of Plain-palais between La Cluse and the Carouge Bridge,5 the quarter playedsomewhat reluctant host to Russian revolutionaries in exile. In 1905,Russia’s defeat by Japan was joyously celebrated there, while the areawas associated with clandestine activities, including bomb-making.6

In 1907, the noise made by Russian students became a concern forlocal residents;7 and so dramatic was the flood of young Russians into

1 See pp. 11.3, 12.2. Subsequent references to the texts of the present edition appearin round brackets.

2 For a summary and interpretation of these issues, see Carabine, pp. 209–51.3 Joseph Conrad: Life and Letters, ed. G. Jean-Aubry (1927), ii, 5.4 Conrad’s previous sojourns in the city are dated as follows: (1) 21 May–14 June 1891

in the wake of his return from the Congo; (2) 8 August–6 September 1894, six monthsafter the death of his uncle and guardian Tadeusz Bobrowski; and (3) May 1895 toseek relief from ‘attacks of melancholy’ (Letters, i, 211). On Conrad’s detailed knowl-edge of Geneva and on the novel’s topographical accuracy, see Kirschner (1988) andKirschner (1992).

5 For a map of this area, see Kirschner, ed., p. xvi.6 ‘Les Fabricants de bombes’, Journal de Geneve, 5 May 1905, p. 2.7 Etienne Barres, Contre le socialisme revolutionnaire (1907); see Kirschner, ed., p. 269.






introduction xxix

Switzerland in the wake of unrest in, and the closure of, Russian uni-versities that it became a matter of official concern.1 Living near thisdistrict, Conrad would have heard Russian – a language familiar to himfrom childhood – daily, and in many ways would have been remindedof his origins and early years.

His last stay, with his wife and two young boys in 1907, possiblysuggested the contrast between a safe, bourgeois city and the unstablecity of St Petersburg upon which both the plot of his new work and theclash between East and West pivot. However that may be, Conrad wasalso dealing with political themes, Russian intrigues and the contrastbetween English and Russian values in the main work he accomplishedwhilst in Geneva: the revision of The Secret Agent. The central actionof that novel – the attempted anarchist bombing of the GreenwichObservatory in 1894 – is inspired by ‘the cynical self-satisfaction’ of thespy-bureaucrat Mr Vladimir, descended ‘from generations victimisedby the instruments of an arbitrary power’.2

The remote germ of Under Western Eyes seems to lie in an idea thatConrad had been contemplating during the spring of 1907 and hadmooted to his literary agent shortly after he and his family arrivedfrom Montpellier to stay in Geneva: to treat the topics of ‘war, peace,labour in general’ in a novel ‘with a sufficiently interesting story’.3

Nothing came of this, or, rather, it complexly evolved into another,quite different work dealing with political themes.

Conrad probably began Under Western Eyes as a short story on hisfiftieth birthday, 3 December 1907.4 He made rapid progress on ‘Razu-mov’, then conceived as a tale ‘about the revolutionist who is blownup by his own bomb’ (Letters, iii, 513). Shortly after completing its firstseventy pages – the final novel’s first chapter – he wrote two revealingletters, to his friend and fellow writer John Galsworthy and to Pinker.Speaking of himself in the third person, he informed Galsworthy:

He is writing now a story the title of which is Razumov. Isn’t it expressive. I thinkthat I am trying to capture the very soul of things Russian – Cosas de Russia....Listen to the theme: The Student Razumov (a natural son of a Prince K––) gives

1 In 1907, the rectors of Swiss universities agreed to implement considerably morestringent admission policies to deal with the influx of Russian university students; seeJournal de Geneve, 11 June 1907, p. 2; 11 August 1907, p. 2.

2 The Secret Agent, ed. bruce Harkness and S. W. Reid (1990), p. 169.28–29.3 Conrad to Pinker, 18 May 1907 (Letters, iii, 440).4 For a detailed account of the novel’s writing and revision, see ‘The Texts’, pp. 296–

315.






xxx introduction

up secretly to the police his fellow Student Haldin who seeks refuge in his roomsafter com[m]itting a political crime (supposed to be the murder of de Plehve).First movement in St Petersburg. (Haldin is hanged of course). [in margin] ‘done’

2d in Geneva: The Student Razumov meeting abroad the mother and sister ofHaldin falls in love with that last, marries her and after a time confesses to her thepart he played in the arrest and death of her brother. [in margin] ‘to do’ ...

But I had to write it. (6 January 1908, Letters, iv, 8–9)

To Pinker the next day, Conrad repeated and augmented hisannouncement: ‘Here is given the very essence of things Russian. Notthe mere outward manners and customs but the Russian feeling andthought.... And, I think, the story is effective. It is also characteristic ofthe present time. Nothing of the sort had been done in English. Thesubject has long haunted me. Now it must come out’ (Letters, iv, 14).

These statements attest to Conrad’s assured sense of his story’s con-temporary relevance, while demonstrating that his decision to writeit was inspired by personal memories and a desire to portray the Rus-sian national character. His friend Richard Curle records another,rather less personal spur to writing that reveals an interest in the mar-ketplace: ‘As he noted in my copy, he was induced to write UnderWestern Eyes “by the rubbishy character of stories about Russian revo-lutionaries published in magazines,” and undoubtedly he composedit with that antagonism to Russian institutions and character whichhe had always showed.’1 Conrad did not exaggerate the timeliness ofhis subject: since 1894, Constance Garnett’s translations of almost allof Turgenev’s works and a substantial part of Tolstoy’s had roused apreoccupation with the Russian ‘soul’ and, in particular, with Tolstoy’sspiritual depths, moral courage and austere lifestyle.

Through Razumov’s ‘record’, Conrad intended to ‘capture the verysoul of things Russian’, but the ‘subject’ outlined to Galsworthy – ofRazumov’s betrayal of Haldin, his subsequent tormented double lifeand desperate need to justify, confess and be understood – describesthe ‘very soul’ of themes and things Conradian. It is a variant of whathe called ‘the inner story of most of my books’ (Letters, iv, 139). This

1 Richard Curle, The Last Twelve Years of Joseph Conrad (1928), p. 99. The genre towhich Conrad was antipathetic would include such works as Joseph Hatton’s By Orderof the Czar: The Tragic Story of Anna Klosstock, Queen of the Ghetto (1890), Richard HenrySavage’s The Anarchist: A Story of To-Day (1894) and Arthur R. and Mary E. Ropes’sOn Peter’s Island (1901). For a survey of such writings, see A. G. Cross, The RussianTheme in English Literature from the Sixteenth Century to 1980: An Introductory Survey andA Bibliography (1985), and Barbara Arnett Melchiori, Terrorism in the Late VictorianNovel (1985).






THE CAMBRIDGE EDITION OF THE WORKS OF JOSEPH...

Documents

Transcript of THE CAMBRIDGE EDITION OF THE WORKS OF JOSEPH...